Machine for



nutren sTATFs PATENT OFFICE.

LYMAN GLEASON, OF Ln nov, New YORK.

AMACHINE Fon ,CUTTING sPLINTs Fon MANUFACTURING BnooMs AND OTHER ARTICLES.

Specication of Letters lPatent No. 217,289, dated October 9,-1841.

To all @07mm t may concern.'

Be it known that I, LYMAN GLEAsoN, of Le Roy, in the county of Genesee and State of New York, have invented an Improved Revolving Splint-Cutting Machine for Cutting or Making Splints .of food for Manufacturing Brooms and other Articles; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof.

I take blocks or bolts of wood, of any of the kinds which possess that degree of toughness and elasticity in the fiber which adapts it to the purpose to which it is to be applied; when intended for the manufacturing of brooms,-the bolts, or blocks, are first to be prepared of the proper length for that purpose, and these blocks or bolts I cut into shavings, or scale boards, by means of vibrating cutting knives, working up and down between slides, or fender posts, in the manner of the knives used in some machines for cutting shingles, and for other purposes.. In Figure l, in the accompanying drawing,y I have represented a machine of this kind which I have used for cutting the stuff into scale boards, or shavings, preparatory to the cutting it into splints, which latter operation I effect by means of another machine to be presently described.

The machine, Fig. l, has four upright posts A, A,` which may be twelve feet long, and these are framed into a sill A', and into a cap piece A2. Between these posts there are sli-ding gates B, B. These I have made about two feet two inches wide, four feet long, and four inches thick; they slide up and down on guide pieces, or tongues, D, D, within the posts A, A. To each of the sliding gates, I affix a cutting knife C, C, reaching across from side to side. These may be set to cut shavings of different thicknesses, say from the sixteenth to the sixtieth of an inch, according to the nature of the stuff,`and the quality of the article to be made from it. ,'.Ihere is a throat through each of the sliding gates, allowing the shaving to pass freely through it. The knives which I have use-d have b en twenty-two inches long, four inches wi-ce and half an inch thick.

The stuft to be cut .is held upon a stout, firmly fixed bench E, and pressed against the knives by hand. And adequate power applied to the driving pulley F, c/ausing it to revolve, will give motion to the crank wheels'Gr, G, which should be about sixteen inches in diameter, and these will actuate the cutting knives through the intermedium o-f `the pitman II, H. The advantages resulting from the use of double slides and knives, rising and falling alternately, will be apparent, as they will balance each other, and. economize the power applied. Other machines may be used for reducing the stuft' into shavings preparatory to the cutting them into splints by means of my revolving splint cutting machine, but having found -the foregoing to answer the purpose well, I

have thought it best to describe it.

Fig. 2, is a vertical section along my revolving splint-cutting machine. I, is a cylinder which may be two feet four inches in diameter, and two feet two inches wide, more or less. This cylinder is sustained on a suitable frame J, J, and is to be made to revolve with great rapidity by means of a whirl and band, o-r otherwise. It may make four of five hundred revolutions a minute. A top view of a part of this cylinder is shown in Fig. 3. K, K, are knives which cross the cylinder, and may be three inches wide; these knives have their ends resting on blocks, so as to sustain them at the distance of an inch, or an inch and a half, from the cylinder along the whole length and width and between them and the cylinder, I place a spring-clearer, which throws off the splints as they are cut by the knives, causing them to fall in a regular manner upon the apparatus from which they are to be collected. This spring-clearer consists of a strip of metal shown by dotted lines in Fig. 3, which fills the, space, but slides freely between the knifes and the cylinder; c, is a spring, bearing against a tail piece CZ, to force the clearer forward.

A feeding apron e, c, the upper side of which rests upon a board f, is placed in front of the machine; the feeding rollers g, g, are driven by bands and whirls fro-m the shaft of the main cylinder; and there iS a pressing roller 7L, all of which are constructed and arranged in the usual way of constructing and arranging such apparatus. The prepared shavings, or scale boards, placed one upon another in such numbers as may be found convenient, are laid upon the feeding apron, and passed between the pressing roller 7L, and the forward feeding roller; and these will be carried for- Ward so as to be sustained, in the operation of cutting, upon the rest z', against which the edges of the knives, K, K, act. The feed is regulated by the size of the respective Whirls; and as the splints are cut the springclearer recedes, admitting them into the space between the knife and the cylinder; the spring reacting on the clearer, throws the splints upon a curved curb L, as the knives pass the rest i; and they may be co1- lected in boxes placed directly under the curb L, or be conducted olf by an endless apron M, and collected in a box N, at its far end. Wlithout the use of the spring-clearer and curb, the splints would be scattered in all directions, but by their aid said splints LYMAN GLEASON.

Vitnesses:

Trios. P. JONES, XVM. H. BISHOP. 

